Welcome (film series)

Welcome is a series of Indian action-comedy films, produced by Firoz Nadiadwala and directed by Anees Bazmee. The first part Welcome[1] released in 2007 and the second part Welcome Back[2] released in 2015. A third part named Welcome to the Jungle is currently in production.[3]

Welcome
Directed by	Anees Bazmee
Produced by	Firoz Nadiadwala
Screenplay by	Anees Bazmee Rajiv Kaul Praful Parekh Rajan Aggarwal (‘’Welcome Back’')
Story by	Anees Bazmee Rajiv Kaul
Starring	Anil Kapoor Nana Patekar Paresh Rawal Akshay Kumar John Abraham Katrina Kaif Shruti Haasan
Music by	Sajid-Wajid (Welcome) Aadesh Shrivastava (Welcome Back)
Cinematography	Sanjay F. Gupta (Welcome) Kabir Lal (Welcome Back)
Edited by	Ashfaque Makrani (Welcome) Stevan Bernard (Welcome Back)
Production company	Base Industries Group Swiss Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. (Welcome Back)
Distributed by	UTV Motion Pictures (Welcome) Eros International (Welcome Back)
Release date	1: 21 December 2007 2: 4 September 2015
Country	India
Language	Hindi
Budget	₹130 crore (US$18 million) (Two films)
Box office	₹285 crore (US$40 million) (Two films)

Overview

Welcome (2007)

Uday (Nana Patekar), a criminal don, decides to find a husband for his kindhearted sister Sanjana (Katrina Kaif), but he is unsuccessful since no one wants to be associated with a crime family. Dr. Ghunghroo (Paresh Rawal) has also been trying to get his nephew, Rajiv (Akshay Kumar), married but due to his condition—the alliance must be with a purely decent family—he is also unsuccessful.

When Rajiv jumps into a burning building to save Sanjana, he is smitten by her. Uday and Majnu (Anil Kapoor), Uday's brother gangster hatch a plan for an alliance with Dr. Ghunghroo. The plan works and Dr. Ghunghroo confirms the alliance, thinking that Uday is a very decent man. But when he is later told that Uday and Majnu are mobsters, he quickly takes his family and flees to Sun City, South Africa to escape. However, Majnu and Sanjana have come to Sun City as well. Rajiv meets Sanjana again and the two fall in love.

Dr. Ghunghroo reconciles with Uday and Majnu and finally agrees to the alliance. Uday and Majnu invite a powerful don of the underworld, RDX (Feroz Khan) to the engagement. At the party, a girl named Ishika (Malika Sherawat) arrives, claiming to be Rajiv's childhood betrothed. Ishika is actually the sister-in-law of Dr.Ghunghroo whom Dr. Ghunghroo asked to come and try to break off the engagement. Ishika manages to do so, leaving Rajiv and Sanjana heartbroken. Dr. Ghunghroo reveals that he did this for Rajiv's mother, who had married into a crime family and was harassed and tortured, thus telling Dr. Ghunghroo to raise Rajiv away from crime when he was born. Dr. Ghunghroo decides he will agree to the marriage only if Uday and Majnu give up their life of crime. Rajiv and Sanjana do this by reawakening Uday's love for acting and encouraging Majnu to pursue his love for painting. With these things keeping them busy, Uday and Majnu have no time for crime any more.

Rajiv's actions anger RDX's son, Lucky, who attempts to shoot Rajiv. Sanjana gets hold of the gun and fires a shot that hits Lucky, causing him to go unconscious. RDX is informed of his son's death and comes to attend the cremation. However Lucky, who is still alive, escapes, trying to show his father that he's actually alive. RDX sets the pile of wood on fire, believing he is cremating his son's body. However Lucky, who had been hiding under the wood, jumps out upon realising the wood is on fire, and the truth is revealed to RDX. Rajiv, Ghunghroo, his wife, Ishika, Uday, Majnu and Sanjana are captured by RDX and brought to a cabin set next to a cliff. The frightened group is forced to play Passing the Parcel (Hot Potato) with a globe—but the one who ends up with the globe must jump off the cliff. When Rajiv refuses to pass the globe to Sanjana, Lucky angrily yanks it out of his hands, just as the music stops. Now that his son has the globe, RDX figures the only way he can maintain his image is by killing everyone. Before he can, several government brokers sneak up and cut the footings of the cabin, causing the house to start falling over the cliff, with everyone trapped inside. However, the cabin is suspended by only one column. Hilarious chaos ensues as the group tries to balance the cabin together and keep it from falling off the cliff. Rajiv finds a rope and the group uses it to get back onto stable ground. But to everyone's shock, the floor breaks and Lucky is found hanging on the edge of the cabin. While Rajiv is trying to rescue him, Sanjana reveals the truth to everyone that she was the one who shot Lucky, but Rajiv blamed himself so that Sanjana wouldn't get in trouble. After Rajiv rescues Lucky, the cabin he is standing on falls off into the cliff. Sanjana keeps crying for him thinking he is dead. However, Rajiv survives the event and is reunited with Sanjana and his family. Lucky and RDX are grateful to Rajiv for saving their lives and RDX gives up his life of crime, allowing Rajiv and Sanjana to finally get married.

Welcome Back (2015)

Uday Shetty (Nana Patekar) and Majnu Bhai (Anil Kapoor) end a life of crime and become honest businessmen, settling in Dubai. Two conwomen from India, Poonam (Dimple Kapadia) and Babita (Ankita Shrivastava), present themselves as Maharani Padmavati and Rajkumari Chandini of Najafgarh to con Uday and Majnu of their money. Babita causes the two men to fall in love with her, thus getting them to finance herself and Poonam's luxurious lifestyle. Later, it is revealed that Uday has another sister Ranjana (Shruti Haasan) from his father's third marriage and Majnu and Uday are emotionally blackmailed by Uday's father into arranging the marriage of Ranjana and are also forced to do so as Poonam makes that one of her conditions for getting Babita married to either one of them.

The movie then shifts to Dr. Ghunguroo (Paresh Rawal), who has found out that he has a step son from his wife's previous marriage, Ajju a.k.a. Ajay (John Abraham). Ajju is a local goon of Mumbai, where Ranjana studies. Through a chain of hilarious events, they both fall in love with each other. Meanwhile, Majnu and Uday arrange the marriage of Ranjana with the step-son of Doctor Ghunguroo, not knowing that he is a goon. However, at the engagement ceremony, Majnu reveals the truth of Ajju, to which Ajju resists with a fight, threatening to marry Ranjana without any of the brothers' consent.

In order to keep Ajju at bay, Uday and Majnu visit Wanted Bhai, (Naseeruddin Shah), who is an infamous blind don. The brothers are shocked to find that Wanted's son Honey (Shiney Ahuja) likes Ranjana and would like to marry her. They decide to arrange the marriage of Ranjana to some other decent man, in order to sidestep Ajju as well as Wanted's son. However, due to Ajju and Dr. Ghunguroo, who are in league with Babita and Poonam, they are caught by Wanted Bhai, who summons them to his island.

There, Ajju and Dr. Ghunguroo try to convince Honey that he no longer loves Ranjana and that Babita is his true love. Meanwhile, Uday and Majnu try to kill Ajju, but are frightened at the graveyard in a ghost act planned by Dr. Ghunguroo, Ajju and Ranjana. Unbeknownst to all of them, their activities have been recorded by closed-circuit television, causing Wanted Bhai and Honey to plan to finish them off. However, in a hilarious climax scene, Honey is kidnapped by all of them and they escape towards the desert where they are chased by Wanted Bhai. In the midst of saving himself, Dr. Ghunguroo pushes Wanted Bhai, causing him to faint. Meanwhile, a group of camels heavily march there. Ajju is successful in saving Wanted Bhai from the stampede of camels, and restoring his sight. Wanted Bhai himself, as a form of gratitude, arranges the marriage of Ajju with Ranjana, calling Ajju his 'second son'.

Welcome to the Jungle (2022)

After the success of two films, makers are planning a third part of this franchise. Reportedly it has been titled Welcome to the Jungle.[3] Producer Firoz Nadiadwala said it won't take that much time to made the second film after first. It will be on floor less than a year. In 2018, it was reported that the third film will go on floors soon with a new director helming the film.

Cast and characters

Character	Film
	Welcome (2007)	Welcome Back (2015)	Welcome to the Jungle (TBA)
Sagar "Majnu" Pandey	Anil Kapoor
Uday Shetty	Nana Patekar
Dr. Ghungroo	Paresh Rawal
Mrs. Ghungroo	Supriya Karnik
Uday Shetty’s lawyer	Adi Irani
Uday Shetty’s bodyguard	Harry Josh
Majnu's goon	Snehal Dabi
Ballu	Mushtaq Khan
Mr. Kapoor	Ranjeet
Rajiv Saini	Akshay Kumar	Akshay Kumar (archive footage)	Akshay Kumar
Ranvir Dhanraj Xaka RDX	Feroz Khan	Feroz Khan (archive footage)
Sanjana Shetty	Katrina Kaif
Ishika / Isha	Mallika Sherawat
Lucky	Shereveer Vakil
Purushottam	Paresh Ganatra
Municipal worker	Charlie
The Pandit	Sanjay Mishra
Fake film director	Vijay Raaz
Fake film producer	Asrani
Suneil Shetty	Himself (cameo)
Narrator	Om Puri
Special appearance in songs	Malaika Arora Khan	Radhika Bangia (in "20-20") Sakshi Maggo (in "20-20") Lauren Gottlieb (in "20-20") Reema Debnath (in "20-20") Surveen Chawla (in "Tutti Bole Wedding Di") Snigdha Gupta Mehta (in "Tutti Bole Wedding Di")	TBA
Ajay "Ajju" Barsi		John Abraham
Ranjana Shetty		Shruti Hassan
Shankar Shetty		Nana Patekar
Poonam / Maharani Padmavati		Dimple Kapadia
Babita / Rajkumari Chandini		Ankita Shrivastav
Wanted Bhai		Naseeruddin Shah
Honey		Shiney Ahuja
Baadshah Bhai		Neeraj Vora
Tailor		Rajpal Yadav

Crew

Occupation	Film
	Welcome (2007)	Welcome Back (2015)	Welcome to the Jungle (TBA)
Director	Anees Bazmee		TBA
Producer(s)	Firoz A. Nadiadwala
Screenplay	Anees Bazmee Rajiv Kaul Praful Parekh	Anees Bazmee Rajiv Kaul Rajan Aggarwal Praful Parekh	TBA
Story	Anees Bazmee Rajiv Kaul		TBA
Cinematography	Sanjay F. Gupta	Kabir Lal	TBA
Editor	Ashfaque Makrani	Steven Bernard	TBA
Composer(s)	Meet Bros. Anjjan, Anu Malik, Abhishek Ray	Anand Raj Anand, Himesh Reshammiya, Sajid-Wajid	TBA
Background score	Sajid-Wajid	Aadesh Shrivastava	TBA

Release and revenue

Film	Release date	Budget	Box office revenue
Welcome	21 December 2007	₹500 million (US$7.0 million)[4]	₹1.16 billion (US$16 million)[5]
Welcome Back	4 September 2015	₹800 million (US$11 million)[6]	₹1.69 billion (US$24 million)[7]
Total		₹1.3 billion (US$18 million) Two films	₹2.85 billion (US$40 million) Two films

References

1. Sukanya Verma (21 December 2007). "Welcome packs in a lot of masala". Rediff.com. Retrieved 30 August 2012.
2. "'Welcome Back' has twice the extravagance and laughter of its earlier part". The Times of India. Retrieved 7 September 2015.
3. Jha, Subhash K. (13 July 2015). "Third instalment of 'Welcome Back' titled 'Welcome To The Jungle'". DNA India.
4. http://www.boxofficeindia.com/Movies/movie_detail/welcome
5. http://www.boxofficeindia.com/arounddetail.php?page=shownews&articleid=4409&nCat=
6. "'Welcome Back' Saturday Box Office Collection: John Abraham Starrer Rakes in Rs 44.40 crore in 2 Days". International Business Times, India Edition. 6 September 2015.
7. Hungama, Bollywood (5 September 2015). "Box Office: Worldwide Collections of Welcome Back :Bollywood Box Office - Bollywood Hungama".

External links

• Welcome at IMDb
• Welcome Back at IMDb